Dozens of churches have closed in the Windsor area over the past decade despite efforts by religious leaders to reverse the trend of shrinking, aging congregations.

A final service at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Tilbury earlier this month marked the latest in a series of church closures that leaders of all denominations say will continue unless they can turn the tide of dwindling attendance.

“Obviously the world is a different place,” said Rev. Keith Nethery, media relations officer for the Anglican Church’s diocese of Huron. “Our bishops realize this isn’t the church we grew up in or our parents attended. People in the world have changed and their needs are different.”

Many families are struggling with the demands of work, school and extracurricular activities. They are more often choosing Sunday as a day of rest and family time rather than get dressed up to attend mass, Nethery said.

As well, traditional religions are being elbowed aside by new faiths and churches, he said.

The diocese has developed a strategy that in one case included selling off a large, underutilized Bruce County church and renting a smaller storefront for the congregation.

“We are walking through a lot of steps that are not Band-Aid solutions,” Nethery said. “We need to retell our story and do things like that.
“With the storefront more people are dropping in and saying ‘what’s going on here?'”

There are other types of community partnerships that can help put churches on a better financial footing, he said.

“We are trying new things to help put life back into the congregation.”

The Roman Catholic diocese of London has taken drastic action over the past decade, closing 40 parishes, including 15 in the Windsor area.

The moves have helped stabilize and in some cases strengthen the remaining churches, said Connie Pare, director of pastoral planning for the diocese.

The Catholic church has also struggled to maintain attendance, although Pare has a different take on the reasons why.

“Young people today look for spirituality and not so much established religions,” she said. “Every survey indicates a high percentage continues to believe in God and pray. But the sense of belonging to an institution seems to be in a bit of an ebb.

“I think young people have a different relationship with church than their parents or grandparents. Previous generations belong to a parish community and were active. Today, you see more people attracted to social justice, helping other people or being good parents or neighbours. People have different ways in defining what it means to be part of a faith community.”
While young people may drift from the church, they renew their commitment once they move toward marriage, baptism of their child or through funerals, Pare said.

“Young families have more challenges previous generations didn’t have,” she said. “More often both parents are working or they are living away from the rest of their family.

“But we are seeing over time for baptisms or marriage, they do come back to their roots and connect again with their faith community.”

A decline in church attendance is part of a long-term societal trend toward secularization, said Jeff Noonan, philosophy professor and head of the department at the University of Windsor.

He noted it is largely the older, more established churches and religions that have suffered the larger decline in attendance and membership.

“It’s traceable, especially among the younger age groups, among traditional structures and institutions,” he said. “The institutions of life you saw in the 1960s have changed radically.

“It’s as much a result of changing attitudes as a whole (toward institutions) rather than decline in a belief in God. Patterns toward voting (in elections) have also declined.”

There are more atheists in North America than previous generations with estimates of up to 20 per cent, Noonan said. But more important in terms of church attendance is the increased pressures people face on their time.

“Just because they don’t go to a church, doesn’t mean people don’t believe in God,” he said. “Money, power, popularity – the way we look at these are not in line with spiritual values at all. But it’s not easy to live free from them.”

Sexual abuse scandals involving priests within the Catholic Church or clergy in other religions has had some impact on church attendance. So have hard-line positions on women in the church and homosexuality which “do not resonate” with younger generations,” Noonan said.

“It doesn’t make sense to some people the ways those issues are viewed historically by some churches,” he said.

“My expectation would be the (attendance) decline will continue. I don’t see anything to turn it around.”

The last United Church to close in Windsor and Essex County was Gesto, which shut down in 2008 after 134 years.

The Essex Presbytery of the United Church of Canada is on the verge of making some difficult decisions within the next several years surrounding church closures because of the drop in attendance, said chairman Rev. John van Omme.

“At this point we have not had a lot of that,” he said. “But we see that’s something to come in five to 10 years.”

The United Church, in order to retain its membership, has decided to embrace the seniors who make up the large majority of its congregations.

“What the majority of us are doing is making our buildings accessible for older people,” he said. “That’s where our population is at right now. We are using overhead projectors, larger print (in newsletters). The real concern for us is that our population is growing older and dying off. We are not attracting younger people.”

Church attendance has slipped because services have become lost among so many options families and others can choose from on a Sunday, van Omme said.

“It’s a question of choices,” he said. “A lot of people work Monday to Friday, even on Saturday, and Sunday has become the only time they can spend as a family day.

“We understand we are not in the 1950s and 1960s any more. Our leaders are working on it and trying to come up with new suggestions to somehow bring people back.”

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